Swift and Immediate actions

[Laniius]

When were they introduced? My PHB lists feather fall as a free action, and Quicken Spell as a free action, while the srd lists them as an immediate action or swift action respectively. I see mention of them being new in Complete Arcane on page 86, but it does not say which book introduced them. Any ideas?

[Keld Denar]

Complete Arcane was the first, IIRC. Complete Warrior and Divine were printed before, and didn't include the concept. Complete Arcane was next, then Adventurer, and every book thereafter had it.

EDIT:
Yes, CWarrior was Dec 2003
CDivine was May 2004
CArcane was October 2004
CAdventurer was January 2005

Somewhere between May and October, they released the Swift/Immediate action rules. I'm not sure if CArcane was first, but it was the first "Complete" book to feature it.

[gkathellar]

I'm not sure whether it was released before or after Complete Arcane, but the first mention I ever saw of them was in the Ninja/Pirate/Dinosaur issue of Dragon. They also saw a lot of mileage in EPH.

In general, anything your PHB can do the SRD can do better because it's got all the errata written down there.

[Zombimode]

EDIT:
Yes, CWarrior was Dec 2003
CDivine was May 2004
CArcane was October 2004
CAdventurer was January 2005

Somewhere between May and October, they released the Swift/Immediate action rules. I'm not sure if CArcane was first, but it was the first "Complete" book to feature it.

Miniatures Handbook was October 2003 and discusses swift actions in the chapter "Magic" on pg. 29.

[Jeraa]

Miniatures Handbook was October 2003 and discusses swift actions in the chapter "Magic" on pg. 29.

And the olderst I have found with immediate actions was the Expanded Psionics Handbook in April 2004.

Edit: I take that back. Immediate actions also first appeared in the Minatures Handbook. Also, I found this in the Rules Compendium:


BIRTH OF NEW “FREE” ACTIONS
Halfway into 3rd Edition, while designing Miniatures Handbook, we realized that free actions hid a potential smorgasbord of cool new mechanics. We subdivided the free actions into immediate actions (a free action you can take when it isn’t your turn), and swift actions (a free action you can take when it’s your turn). However, it wasn’t until Expanded Psionics Handbook’s development that the bulb fully brightened. The concept that swift and immediate actions could serve as one more resource available to a player opened up new vistas of possibility, expanding options in the game.
—Bruce R. Cordell, designer

So Miniatures Handbook was the book that introduced swift and immediate actions in October 2003, but it was until April of 2004 with the Expanded Psionics Handbook that the actions started getting used in other books as well.

[Laniius]

Is there any other place aside from the Rules Compendium that says that wands are the same action as the spell? My DM "isn't using the Rules Compendium" and absolutely refuses to have a wand use anything less than a standard action. The website www.d20srd.org won't work either as he believes that the books trump the website.

[Douglas]

Is there any other place aside from the Rules Compendium that says that wands are the same action as the spell? My DM "isn't using the Rules Compendium" and absolutely refuses to have a wand use anything less than a standard action. The website www.d20srd.org won't work either as he believes that the books trump the website.
There might conceivably be an article or FAQ answer on wizards.com somewhere, but I don't think the possibility of wands with less than standard action activation was ever printed outside of Rules Compendium. The core books account for the possibility of longer casting times, but neglected to mention shorter, probably because shorter casting times didn't exist* when they were written. Swift and immediate action spells didn't come about until years later.

* With the exception of Feather Fall and Quickened spells, and possibly a very small number of other special cases.

[Hirax]

Unfortunately the Spell Compendium says at the end of page 4 that using a wand is a standard action, even if the spell's normal casting time is a swift action. At some point they backtracked on that position, as is made obvious by the rules Compendium. I doubt the Rules Compendium was the first appearance of the change in casting time, but either way I think you're fighting a losing battle, it sounds like you're going to have a hard time getting your DM abandon their position of selectively gleaning rules from some books and not others.

[ericgrau]

It was a rather stupid way to change a rule. You may be better off leaving it as a standard simply to avoid confusion.

[Claudius Maximus]

Doesn't the MIC feature the fixed version too? I think MIC claims itself as a primary source on magic items, so that would become the official rule, which the RC would then back up.

[Psyren]

1) Swifts and Immediates debuted in Miniatures Handbook, the first 3.5 splat.

2) Anything in RC trumps anything else.

3) Let your DM have his way. Then get a bunch of slow-spell wands (e.g. lesser restoration) that only take a standard action to cast. It goes both ways - if he doesn't want to use the actual rules, exploit them in the other direction.

[ericgrau]

(3) The rule says standard or the normal casting time, whichever is greater.

Live with it or just get scrolls.